Helpless
by Noraneko94
Summary: Tag to The Scarlet Schooltrip: A little one shot about how Heiji had to stuff Kudo into his backpack while he was still shrinking. Rated T to be safe.


Hattori Heiji quietly eyed the shrunken detective sat in the booth with him. The boy was hardly paying attention to their conversation, his eyes instead glued to his phone screen and a grin plastered on his face. For once, Heiji didn't mind being ignored.

He had been friends (and rivals) with Kudo for what felt like an eternity. The first time they'd met, he'd known something was off about the high school detective, and it hadn't just been his cold. He knew back then that the teenager had been hiding something from them: he'd just never expected it to be, well, what it really was.

When he'd discovered the truth – that Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi were one and the same person – he'd almost not believed it. Still, he'd been there often enough now to know that the drug Kudo had been forced to take was real.

That did not make seeing his best friend in agony any easier. What angered Heiji more than anything was to feel helpless. The first time he'd seen Kudo's antidote wearing off, he'd thought the boy was having a heart attack: His skin had gotten pale and clammy, his breath became ragged and Heiji had felt the heat radiating from the teenager.

What scared him the most, however, was the excruciating chest pain that seemed to come with the transformation. Kudo had tried to describe it to him once: ''like a claw reaching into his chest and squeezing every last ounce of blood out of his heart'' he'd said.

He'd heard the screams that escaped from the young detective's lips before as well, though usually he'd been too busy keeping other people, particularly Kazuha and Ran, from running in and finding him replaced with their favourite seven-year-old.

This time, he'd not been lucky enough to stay on the side-lines. If Hattori had felt helpless before, he felt outright useless now that he'd actually seen Kudo shrink in front of his eyes. The teen had staggered off so suddenly, he'd hardly had time to realise what was happening. He'd followed his friend and guided him to a deserted part of the Kiyomizu Butai (how they'd found a spot where no one would see them was nothing short of a miracle).

Kudo had been gritting his teeth, his frame shaking and _steam_ coming off of him. The fellow detective had gasped, his eyes going wide, and that's when it happened: It was surreal to feel the shoulders he'd been supporting shrinking in his hands. The clothes on Kudo's frame became looser; his shoes became too big for his feet to fill.

''S-She's coming…'' Hattori had been drawn out of his thoughts by Kudo's weak voice: he winced at how he was starting to sound more like the seven-year-old boy.

''G-got to hide- Gah!'' Hattori felt his heart sink as Shinichi stifled another scream by biting onto one of the sleeves that was quickly becoming too large for him, but he had no time to waste.

Haibara Ai had forced them to prepare for a 'sudden change', having anticipated that the antidote would not work as long as it had the first day of the trip. She'd strictly instructed him to carry a large backpack with him at all times, with a change of clothes for Conan prepared in it. Still, that did not make stuffing his suffering best friend in a bag any more fun.

''Sorry 'bout this…'' He mumbled, his words laced with guilt as he opened the bag and ushered Kudo's shrinking form into it. The boy had his eyes squeezed shut: he was biting down hard on the sleeve of his uniform: the jacket was now large enough to cover most of his small frame. Aware of the oncoming high school girl, Hattori quickly stuffed the uniform further into the bag, careful not to hurt Conan before closing the bag.

The steam stopped coming out of his bag, and he couldn't help but notice how _still_ his friend had become when he lifted the bag and carefully strapped it to his back. He desperately wanted to open the bag again and make sure Shinichi was okay, but he came face to face with a fanged high school girl instead.

He'd tried to diffuse the situation, but had cringed when she'd clearly caught him in his lies. Still, it slightly relieved him when Conan _kicked_ him from inside the bag when he had fallen for her ploy.

He had offered to take Conan back home to Tokyo at the end of the day: he needed to confirm for himself that Kudo was, in fact, okay. Heiji had berated the young detective for checking his phone while they were driving, though it wasn't hard to deduce who had messaged him judging by the colour of his cheeks. At least one of them was in a good mood.

Still, Heiji couldn't help but be relieved. He'd hated seeing his friend in agony, and though he would never admit it, he'd been frightened when Kudo shrunk in front of him. It had made him realise just how much Kudo had been struggling all this time, and it frustrated him that he couldn't take the pain away. So to see him back to normal, or as normal as a seventeen-year-old in the body of a seven-year-old could be anyway, was a welcome sight.

Ever since that day, Heiji made a silent promise: he might not be able to take the pain away, but he would not leave his friend alone. He would help him in any way he could, and if that involved stuffing him into a bag, or lightening the mood by forcing his friend to buy him a steak, then perhaps he wasn't helpless after all.


End file.
